Campus Facilities Upgrades: Infrastructure and First Year Housing a Priority

Alex Gervais ’28

Exec. Opinion and Design Editor

On March 5, President Lugo announced in an email to the community a preliminary plan for upgrading facilities at Trinity. This plan prioritizes upgrades to the first-year residence halls, heating and cooling infrastructure repairs, refurbishing learning spaces, and refurbishing athletic spaces. These upgrades will be paid for through $13 million in funding from a bond issuance from Dec. of 2025, where the school raised the necessary capital for campus improvements along with refinancing expiring debt. 

The Tripod sat down with Trinity Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Scott Jordan to discuss the specifics of facilities upgrades and understand exactly where Trinity’s bond funds are going. Jordan said the school’s primary goal “is to address student facing issues on campus that, with a sense of urgency, we can get done right away to make the student experience better.” 

Jordan asserted that the first target for campus improvements will be making repairs to the campus’s heating and cooling system, focusing on replacing the steam pipe that runs from the Austin Arts Center to the Clement Chemistry Building. This pipe is likely “the reason why cold water in the library is coming out warm,” according to Jordan. He also stressed that “heat and showers that are hot and work are core to the student experience” and would be immediate areas to address. 

These investments come after a winter where Trinity students and faculty faced weeks of disruptions to heat and hot water, along with burst pipes. On Oct. 21, an excavation project began to repair the steam pipe that runs near the Raether Library began after the Library appeared to not be receiving cold water, a project that remained active until the beginning of the spring semester. Throughout November and December there were consistent disruptions to heating and hot water services across campus buildings as administration attempted to make repairs. On Jan. 25, and again on Feb. 8, pipes burst in Hansen Hall, flooding hallways and student living spaces.

Jordan also stressed that upgrades to first-year residence halls are sorely needed, the school intending to use $5 million on those upgrades. These upgrades will include restrooms, furniture and common spaces, with work to be done over the next two summers. “Students move out, contractors move in,” is the strategy administration is looking to use, with no repairs being done while students are actively living in those dormitories. He stressed that with these improvements “first years that come next year will have a better experience than the students are having today.” 

A portion of bond funds will be dedicated to making improvements to Trinity’s athletic facilities. The school will replace the Paul D. Assassinate tennis courts that are “beyond repair” and have “cracks that are substantial enough that our tennis team last year couldn’t host any home matches outdoors.” The school is also adding lights to the softball field in an effort to equalize it with the facilities of the baseball team.

The final portion of the bond money will be dedicated to improving academic spaces. Administration is looking to take faculty and student input on what and where to improve, but Jordan stressed that the prime concern is taking care of upgrading academic necessities like white boards and desks.

Throughout all of the campus improvements, Jordan harped on sustainability being an eventual target for Trinity’s power generation, saying the school wants “to make it modern, redundant and more sustainable. We’re looking at different options for more sustainability. We’re still early in our thinking there.” While unable to commit to a fully de-carbonized Trinity in the near future due to resource constraints in comparison to peer institutions, Jordan stressed that transitioning off carbon is in the “next phases for [the school’s] planning” and that the school would “like to get to post-carbon.” 

“We know Trinity is an old and beautiful campus, but old also means it needs a lot of repair. And we do want to get the priorities right to make life on campus as enjoyable as we can” said Jordan.